by Blake Hernandez
he Foot Stool” clip is another name for “just shave the mats,” “the airpod case” or “the other lamb trim”—all pretty humorous ways to describe this surprisingly functional freestyle trim. This trim keeps the fur closer to the ground clean and tidy longer, and basically turns the dog’s body into a heated pillow!
Fig 1) In order to enhance the roundness of the bum, you will need to angle your pattern line up in the rear.
Fig 2) Clip everything below this to whatever length you wish, though I would suggest a #4F-#7F.
Fig 3) The pattern line at the dog’s elbow needs to be perfectly parallel with the floor. Clip everything beneath this line just like the back leg. I do think it’s best to back-brush the hair on the foot so that when you clip it will not make the foot look puffy.
Fig 4) In the spirit of speediness, I always recommend you get all your clipper work done before your scissor work. For that reason, I then jump to the clip-in work on the face. For this older dog, I keep the hair around his muzzle tight at about a #5F.
Fig 5) Use the same length on the chin but in reverse, as this will help keep the chin from getting messy.
Fig 6) This is the part that helps eliminate clipper work and gives you a base for all the scissor work you will be doing on the body. Simply take the deepest part of the brisket and clip it down with a #5F as well.
Fig 7) As usual, the tail is dealer’s choice. On this dog, I gave him a little rat tail; almost like a stem from his apple bottom. For this style, you will clip the entire tail with a #15.
Fig 8) Even though it’s a comical groom, there are things you want to keep consistent, such as a nice short back. To achieve this, start at the back and use a curved scissor to force the dog’s rear end back and not hanging off past the tail.
Fig 9) Coming from your pattern line, round the rear end from the thigh up to your top-line coat.
Fig 10) Using the same premise on the front, keep it round, but force the chest to stay under the dog’s throat so that you have a nice compact “foot stool.”
Fig 11) Switching to a straight shear, carefully connect the rear pattern line to the shoulder pattern line, being careful not to accentuate any waist.
Fig 12) Next start building the coat up and out from the shoulder to give a nice round appearance when viewed from every angle.
Fig 13) Take a step back and make sure the curvature in the chest matches the curvature over the rump. Then take a straight and curved scissor and just tip the hair on the body that remains. You want the body to get big and poofy so do not remove length, just put a nice finish on the coat.
Fig 14) From behind the eye, trim the outside corners very tight with a small straight scissor.
Fig 15) Build your topknot up from the outside of the headpiece up and over the break above the ear with a curved scissor.
Fig 16) Trim the top of the head to whatever length you like. For this dog, I was just trying to remove the grown-out dyed topknot as much as possible.
This may be a trim that was born from necessity, but here it is perfected through passion and comedy. I find the best way to fight burnout as a groomer is to keep doing grooms that make you smile. And nothing will make someone smile quite like a little foot stool running around!